


The Persistence of Memory

by Kylenne



Category: Mass Effect
Genre: Angst, F/M, Female Character of Color, LGBTQ Female Character of Color, Multi, Polyamory, Smut
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-12-24
Updated: 2012-12-24
Packaged: 2017-11-22 07:23:16
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,858
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/607287
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kylenne/pseuds/Kylenne
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Memory is a powerful thing, filled with equal parts pleasure and pain, even for those species without the burden of perfect recall.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Persistence of Memory

He knows it's her before the door even fully opens. Thane always knows when it's Shepard, not merely through the honed senses of an expert predator which his body possesses, but through equal parts familiarity most intimate: he hears her in that distinct rhythm of echoed taps as her heels click against the metallic floor of the ship. Not the boots of her hard suit, but the slender spikes of a designer stiletto. Feminine hardness, grace and steel, so like his siha, and it speaks to his soul as assuredly as to his body. As she always does.

The door shuts behind her, and his heart warms, as it always does. He looks up eagerly from James Baldwin's collected works, and turns his body to smile at her in genuine pleasure; she's wearing the black cocktail dress, and is stunning as always. The smile vanishes quickly, however, when his eyes meet hers, and she glances downward. Her brow furrows, her thick lips pursed, and her body language is tense.

"Good evening, siha. Is there something you wish to discuss?" he asks, setting Kasumi's book upon the shelf.

"You read my mind, Thane," Shepard sighs, then crosses the small distance between them and sits in her customary seat at the table across from him. His body leans forward, almost instinctually, and takes her hands into his own, their softness a pleasant contrast against his scales. Her warm brown eyes, normally resplendent with a quiet dignity and strength, appear haunted and filled with uncertainty.

"You seem disquieted," he notes delicately. Their bond is such that she trusts him implicitly, but still, he opens the door without stepping through. He is always thus, with Shepard. It's never hesitation so much as respect, and a desire to allow her the time to speak in her own fashion. He knows she will confide in him nonetheless. She always does, in her time.

She exhales, lowering her eyes to gaze upon their entwined hands. Not the pain of Disconnection for Shepard. Sorrow, perhaps, and regret. The same charged tension hangs thick in the air as it did in Dr. T'Soni's office in Nos Astra, in glances exchanged and words left unspoken. Again, Thane waits. He does not press the issue, because it's not his place to do so. When at last she speaks, her voice is quiet, introspective. "Liara always could see right through me. Maybe it's because she's seen my mind. I don't know." She sighs again, and he gently strokes her hand in a gesture of comfort.

A sly, faint smile flickers across Thane's lips, despite himself. Shepard is not nearly as inscrutable as she believes herself to be. Perhaps to the others, but not to him, nor to the turian. He's learned to read those shifting subtleties in her eyes, the distinct patterns of tension in her body, the quirking of her brow, and a thousand more signs. "One need not be an asari joining minds with you to see you thus, Imani," he gently teases her. The smile fades, his expression turning to one of sympathy. "There's a great deal of history there, with her. And still more regret. Is there not?"

"I guess you could say that. It's complicated." She winces, crinkling her broad nose, and adds with a self-deprecating chuckle, "it always is with me, isn't it?" 

"Your words, Imani. Not mine." He smiles at her again. 

"I love you too," Shepard says with a hilariously exaggerated pout. Just as quickly, she turns serious again. "Liara and I...it's a long story. We met when I served on the original Normandy, during the hunt for Saren--we rescued her on Therum, and there was something between us nearly from the beginning. I wasn't lying when I told you I don't normally feel that kind of instant attraction to someone. It really is strange for me. But when someone touches your mind the way she did, when they see your innermost thoughts...it stays with you. There's a connection there. We talked a lot, too, about her work, and the loneliness she felt sometimes. It was something we had in common."

Thane listens attentively, and the story sounds distinctly familiar; his mind sees the echoes of their own relationship in those words, and suddenly a great many things begin to make sense for him. "You were drawn to her," he says, with understanding and empathy.

"Yeah, I really was," Shepard admits. "I'm not even entirely sure I can explain it. But like I said, it's complicated. There was someone else back then, too. It was verboten with him though, since he was a subordinate, and the Alliance has rules against fraternization. Funny how the heart never really cares about that kind of thing." 

"Perhaps humans are not so different than we drell," Thane muses. "In that such distinctions are made between what the body desires and what the mind commands."

"Maybe you're right," Shepard agrees. "But regardless, he meant a lot to me. He was a biotic too, and that's kind of a big deal for humans. There's a lot of fear and superstition about our abilities, among our species. We understood each other, how we were set apart. He confided in me about a lot of things in his past. I made him feel safe, and he did the same for me."

Many more things begin to make sense for Thane, his mind already slipping the pieces together. More parallels, more repetition. Such things, he's always believed, were never the work of coincidence or mere chance. The Gods work in patterns, send lessons in perpetuity until they are heeded, and applied to one’s life. He has seen this at work in his own life: she was not the first siha to come into it, after all. "I see," he says. "There were two hearts within your grasp that were held precious each in their own way. I assume this did not end well, all things considered." 

Shepard sighs again, a shadow crossing her eyes. "Kaidan didn't understand, at all. He thought I was leading them both on, or that Liara was just some kind of...I don't know. It didn't matter how much I tried to tell him that what I felt was real. He thought I was playing games, because he couldn't understand that my loving her didn't mean I couldn't love him just the same. He thought it just meant he wasn't enough for me, and that wasn't true at all. He'd spent his life believing love is a zero-sum game, that there had to be a winner and loser, and I just wasn't raised like that. I've never been. My parents were happily married and crazy about each other, and they still had loving relationships with other people. Half the families in our temple were like that, it was just how it was. I've just never thought of love as something that has to be rationed out, because one person might not get enough.”

Thane nods in genuine empathy; her words make a great deal of sense, as much as they had when last they had this particular conversation. His own people have similar beliefs. Does Arashu not love Amonkira and Kalahira in equal measure? It is selfish and self-defeating to allow jealousy to impede love. He is not surprised to hear humans struggling with this concept, however. It became quickly apparent to him from the human novels and books of philosophy he’d read that jealousy is inexplicably considered a sign of the highest order of love and devotion among much of their species. It baffles him, still.  

“What happened?” he asks, already strongly suspecting what the answer will be.

“Liara understood, and she got how I felt about Kaidan and was fine with the idea of working something out,” Shepard explains. “But that's not how he felt, and he confronted us, he gave me an ultimatum. It was him, or Liara." She pauses, long black lashes fluttering as her eyelids shut and she takes a breath. "I chose him. I let her go, because I didn't want to hurt him. I thought she could take it. And she did, she really understood. There weren't any hard feelings. It's just...every time I saw her after that, I couldn't...I missed her. Gods, I missed her. Every day, I thought about what we could have had. I loved her, Thane. And I let her go because I didn't know what else to do. I didn't want to lose him too, I wanted him to be as happy as I thought he made me." 

"Siha, you did what you felt you must, in a difficult situation," Thane says, squeezing her hand in a show of comfort. "No one reasonable could fault you for that."

His words seem to pass right through her, and she begins shaking slightly; he's never seen her show such raw vulnerability, and it breaks his heart by turns. When she speaks, her voice is quietly trembling, uncharacteristically so. "I know I never told you why I was so afraid when I realized I was falling for you. This was why. I didn't...I was so scared I would lose you, or Garrus. I saw history repeating itself and I was terrified because I couldn't do that again. I couldn't deal with that kind of pain and regret again. I’ve screwed up relationships so many times, and there's only so much I can bury--"

"I understand completely," he replies softly. He raises her hand to his lips, kissing her lush brown skin with tenderness, the familiar sweet, earthy scent of her lotion filling him with the selfsame contented succor he wishes to give her in abundance. He tilts his head when he speaks once more, his slender fingers massaging her hand. "And I would never demand such cruelties of you, siha. I saw what Garrus meant to you, even when we first met, before we were truly acquainted. I would never demand that you forsake him, much less on my account. I could never deny you that bond with him, when it has made you the woman I've come to love. I know perhaps better than most that time is far too precious, too fleeting, to spend it being petty, or possessive. I would rather spend it loving you."

She seems calmer with his touch, with his words, and she breathes deeply. "You have no idea what that means to me, Thane. Every moment I'm thankful for you two being so good about this. For being patient with me."

"You needn't thank me, siha." Thane inclines his head slightly, in a gesture of modesty. "But seeing Liara again has re-opened old wounds you'd thought were healed, I imagine."

"It's more than that, Thane. Remember the story I told you, about how Lord Asar was resurrected after he died? And how Lady Aset searched all over Kemet for his body?"

 "I do," Thane answers, nodding. She's shared this myth with him on any number of occasions, because it's given her meaning and a deeper appreciation for the ancestral faith that her parents tried so hard to instill in her, in the wake of her own death and resurrection. "Set grew jealous, threatened, and coveted his brother's throne. He slew Asar, and scattered his body to the desert. Aset took to the skies as a falcon, searching for her beloved's corpse. And when she found it, he was revived." 

Thane knows she takes comfort in Asar, a god as beloved to her as Amonkira is to him, and he suspects it is not merely because he too was killed and resurrected. Thane sees little coincidence in the fact that the god's skin is depicted as green in the human texts he's read, that he is associated with death and renewal--these are things Thane has read about, studied in his own time, because he's learned to take comfort in them too, for his own reasons. He's come to believe their gods were drawing them to each other. 

Shepard smiles sadly. "You know, I grew up my whole life hearing that story. Our festivals revolved around it. We had a monsoon on Mindoir, every summer, and Mom said it was Aset's tears. It was what made the growing season possible, just like the Nile River's inundations on Earth in ancient times. Asar's death and rebirth made the land fertile, so we could grow our crops. My whole childhood, and I never really paid it much attention--and then this. I died, and this woman gives up everything to find my body, in the hopes it’ll bring me back. Cybernetics made me whole, like the gold part of Asar. I always thought it was just a story, and then...this happens.” She stops briefly, sighing again before continuing in an exasperated tone, the sort of tone Shepard reserved for her deepest self-recriminations. “The worst part is that I had an Aset and I gave her up for someone who had no faith in me at all, not when it really mattered. Even thinking about it now, you know Matriarch Benezia called Liara 'Little Wing', right before she died? The whole time it was staring me in the face, and I was so oblivious. The Neteru sent me all kinds of signs that I just couldn't see. I never learned to look when I had the chance."

Thane releases her hands, the table between them a sudden gross irritation to him, and he rises to his feet to cross over to her, placing his hands on her bare shoulders. He grasps them tightly, his fingers deftly working out the knots and tension in her muscles. "You could not have known what would happen, siha. Our paths are filled with uncertainty, and we're fragile, fallible creatures. It's what makes us drell--" He pauses, then, smiling faintly as he mentally corrects his error. "--or human, as it were. The closer my body moves toward its death, the more I've come to understand how little I _do_ understand, or can foresee. Uncertainty is all we truly have. And regret is inevitable, if all we do is look behind us, rather than keeping our eyes on the path before us. You've taught me that."

Shepard stands, and Thane steps to the side briefly, to allow her room to leave the chair. She neatly slides it back under the table, then turns and leans against the back, facing him. The tension in her face and posture seems gone, at last, and she seems more like the Imani he's grown so accustomed to: filled with a quiet strength, sunset-colored eyes full of love and compassion. Warrior angel, filled with light. His siha. And perhaps he appreciates her even further, now that he has further understanding of what lies beneath that picture of resilience. She wraps her arms around his neck. “That’s an interesting thing coming from someone with perfect memory,” she quips, a single eyebrow raised.

“I did tell you it’s a burden at times,” Thane gently reminds her, his own arms wrapping around her waist as he leans in close to her. “The trick is to dwell only on that which is pleasant, and to release that which is not.”

Shepard’s full, pouting lips spread into a lascivious smile, her signature black lipstick catching a slight glint in the fluorescent lighting. “Maybe we ought to improve on that ratio some,” she idly muses, her eyes smoldering, “and give you something pleasant to dwell on.” She leans in to part his own full lips with her tongue, and he hungrily complies, squeezing her into a tight embrace.

 Thane pulls away abruptly for air, only far enough to soothe the tightness in his lungs, but reassuringly returns her smile with one equally sensual, the rising warmth of her body--and his own--leaving him quite amenable to the suggestion. His hands slowly lower from her waist, sliding down the back of her smooth leather dress to firmly grasp her by the rear. “Our glorious leader is full of superb ideas, it seems,” he says.

 “And our smart-assed assassin is full of wisecracks,” Shepard retorts with a smirk. 

“I defer to your example as always, Commander,” Thane says dryly, echoing her smirk. “And to your wishes. I look forward to this memory.” He hunches forward slightly, sliding his hands down to the bottom of her dress long enough to hook his thumbs inside the hem. He hikes it upward to reveal more of her long, elegant legs, and they seem to go on for an age. His hands caress her inner thighs, marveling as he always seemed to at how soft and supple her skin is, at how a soldier so fierce and hard on the field could be so tender beneath the armor. 

The silk and lace panties clinging to her skin are entirely soaked through. His fingers slide idly from front to back slipping the fabric across her swollen lips, teasing her with the merest hint of pressure. She squirms against him, breasts pressed tightly against his bare chest. “Thane,” she pleads, rising up desperately for more friction. He smiles, sliding a finger along the elastic band of her panties, before finally slipping his hand inside.

Soft, warm flesh yields eagerly for his slender fingers, his thumb sliding against the small, swollen nub. He works it in deft circles, agonizingly slow at first, and moistens his webbed fingers well with her juices before slipping them gently into her warm cunt. She moans quietly at the sensation, clinging to him all the tighter, rising up into his touch once more. Sweat-soaked lace slides against his knuckles as he begins to glide his fingers in and out of her in a slow, easy rhythm. His thumb swirls around and over her clit in graceful harmony with his fingers, rubbing it harder as he slides deeper and faster inside her with each stroke. 

Her back arcs, and his eyes never leave hers, even as she closes them at last overwhelmed with pleasure. The sight of her body melting at his touch is simply too hypnotic to ignore. His pants grow excruciatingly tight as he watches her, his cock swelling in near painful hardness. Her knees buckle, the stiletto heels sliding across the metal floor, and she clings to him tightly to stay upright. She buries her face into his shoulder, her body quivering against him, her hips rising up again and again to match his finger-strokes, and he wraps his free arm around her.

His voice is barely a rumbling whisper. "Siha," he breathes into her ear, before he kisses it, a languid stroke of his tongue across her neck as he presses down harder on her clit to rub it in circles. “What do you wish of me, Imani?” His fingers slip in and out of her faster with each caress of his hand. “What is it you desire?”

Shepard answers him in wordless gasps of pleasure, her body tenses against him. At last she clamps her teeth down hard on his neck, moaning a muffled cry. He holds her tightly with his bracing arm, she trembles and melts into his embrace. “That,” she whispers at last with a soft giggle, when her trembling ceases. “A lot more of that.”

“We have an accord, then,” Thane says with a smile. He caresses her sensitive skin one last time, then raises his soaked fingers to his lips in curiosity and parts them to lick the glistening webbing clean. The salty sweetness makes him even harder, and he rumbles quietly; a sound he knows her human ears cannot hear. 

There’s a quiet tearing sound as leather peels away from leather and she finally lets go of him, but she does not venture far. Her hands slide down his chest to undo the straps on his coat and pants. He flings the coat off to a corner as her hands massage his crotch, kneading the swelling bulge. As he reaches behind her to unzip the dress, she slips free the straps of his pants in tandem and reaches inside to pull his cock out from his briefs; the sudden release from the constricting clothing alone is enough to make him rumble again in content, but then her fingers coil around him, squeezing just firmly enough to be insistent, and he bites his lip to suppress a moan. Her eyes narrow in a challenge, one he is all too willing to accept. “Do I need to repeat myself?” she teases him, her hand twisting down his spiraling shaft. 

Thane forcefully grabs Shepard by the ass, pushing her up against the table, and rubs himself against her, the small spiral ridges around his cock catching against the lace of her panties. The friction sends tingles up his spine, and it only serves to inflame him further. He pulls away to yank the soaked fabric down the willowy length of her well-toned legs. When they drop to the metal floor, she gingerly steps out of them, her black stilettos tapping back down hard on the steel as she spreads her legs invitingly with a playful little roll of her hips. He kisses his way back up her luscious dark skin, his tongue glides across her inner thighs, ghosting a trail across her nether lips. She exhales sharply with a high-pitched moan as his tongue dances along her clit all too briefly, before he pulls back abruptly and rises to his feet.

In one swift motion he spins her around and bends her face down across the table, her hands slamming onto it with a slippery thud. He hikes the leather dress up to her waist and strokes her inner thighs firmly, his thumbs tease the edges of her labia rather mercilessly, and he spreads her legs wide. His hand reaches down to his cock and guides the large tip inside; she gasps, and he grips her by the soft curves of her hips.

He begins to thrust sharply, penetrating deeper inside her with every stroke. The sensation of her tight, slick warmth engulfing him makes him rumble with pleasure again in that low drell register, and it only makes him shove deeper into her, until he’s filled her completely with his iron hardness. 

A thousand times during his meditations, his mind has drifted to carnal visions of doing this to her, on this table, but reality far surpasses those fevered imaginings, in a way his imagination never could have dreamed. He watches her fingers curl into knuckles grasping the edge of the table in a vice grip. She clings to it for dear life, the sheer strength of his thrusting causing her knees to buckle, her heels lifting up off the floor every time he pounds into her. Without slowing his rhythm, he lifts her left leg onto the table and she spreads open wider for him, her knee bent in an impressive display of flexibility. Thane bends down and half sprawls on her back, his cock jamming even deeper into her warm dripping cunt with more leverage, his fingers digging into her flesh as tightly as hers grip the table. The stiletto heel of her shoe scrapes against his arm with every thrust, but it only makes him harder, more furious with his rhythm.

She tries desperately to stifle her moans of pleasure, her eyes clamped tightly shut, her teeth clamping down hard upon her lips, but her body betrays her sense of propriety with every jerk of his hips against hers, and she gets louder with each passing moment. He reaches down and around with the hand still on her hip, maintaining the same fierce pace, and slides a finger between her thighs, spreading her lips again. Pressing down hard, he rubs rough and fast circles over her swollen, slick clit while he slams into her over and over again, and the sensations in tandem prove too much for her body to handle. 

This time when she cries out in orgasm, there is nothing to muffle her delirious sounds. His own body tenses, her cries bringing him to the threshold of release; he seizes up, grunting in the lowest register possible, and comes hard inside her.

Thane pants for a moment into her back, taking a brief moment to compose himself. 

“Are you okay, Thane?” Shepard asks him.

 “I am content,” he answers dryly, and rises upright. She lowers her shaking leg from the table and wobbles to her feet, eliciting a good-natured chuckle from him when she has to sit on the table for support. “Perhaps I should ask you the same.”

Shepard laughs softly, and leans forward to kiss him. “You two are going to be the death of my ability to walk, I swear. But I’m fine--relatively speaking.” She swivels her hips, wiggling a bit playfully. “I could go for a few more rounds, though. If you’re up for it.” She glances down meaningfully.

“You should know me by now, siha,” Thane chides her. He pulls her toward him once more to accentuate the point, and scoops her off the table and into his arms in a show of his wiry drell strength. He holds her up with very little effort, and she wraps her  legs around his body. “I’ve only just begun.”

“Good,” she says, kissing his brow ridge. “Then take me upstairs and we can get serious about this.”

“Yes, Commander.” He laughs softly in genuine amusement, then dutifully carries her out of the Life Support room to the nearby elevator. She leans down and kisses him hungrily as he stumbles back into the wall, her tongue undulating inside his mouth as though possessed. She truly is insatiable, and it rouses all manner of passion within him. He already feels the blood quickening in his veins again.

Thane pulls away briefly, voice thick with lust when he speaks. “Perhaps I should take you right here in the hallway,” he rasps into her ear, planting kisses along her neck and collarbone. “Or should I pin you up against the door to the main battery and let Garrus hear you scream? Do you think he’d like to listen to me fuck you senseless?”

Her breath hitches involuntarily, betraying her delight at such a notion, and her lashes flutter in mild embarrassment when she catches herself. He smirks, and files this away for the future. As much as it also appeals to him, it’s not truly what he wants right now. He pulls her into the elevator instead when it arrives seconds later, kissing her throat, sliding one of his hands down the loosened front of her dress. She barely has the presence of mind to hit the button for her quarters while her other hand reaches down to stroke his coiled shaft to full arousal again. They spin so her back is against the wall this time, and the urge to spread her open and nearly overwhelms him. It takes all his discipline not to do so.

He lowers her down, they stumble out of the elevator and into her cabin, kissing and tugging at each other’s clothes by turns, and they at last shed the remainder in heaps upon the floor, leaving a trail of leather garments and shoes leading to the bed where she lies down. 

She stretches her lithe, willowy body sinuously across the white sheets, smiling at him in invitation; he answers by crawling after her and sprawls atop her, smiling down at her. Half bathed in shadow and the dim glow of the electronic lights upon her altar, she is as beautiful as he has ever seen her. Her flawless mahogany skin is as rich, dark, and lush as the sands of Rakhana, soft and gleaming with sweat, flush and glowing with the pleasure he’s already given her this evening. Her thick lashes are black and long, framing resplendent almond-shaped brown eyes that gaze up at him in utter adoration. Even the thick red curls plastered to her brow by her sweat seem that much more lustrous. Thane has seen any number of human women over the course of his career, in a variety of shapes and complexions, and had even found a number of them attractive, but none were as singularly alluring to him as Imani Shepard. His siha has a beauty as fathomless and eternal as the Sea, and he could lose himself in her dark mysteries again and again.  

For what seems to him the thousandth time, he silently gives thanks to the Gods--his own, and hers--for bringing her into his life. Her body is his temple, and there are a thousand such prayers ready upon his lips, sung in fiercely tender kisses and caresses, pouring out a liturgy of unfathomable devotion upon her soft, dark skin. His tongue trails across her supple breasts, one after the other, squeezing firmly and fondling them by turns, suckling her hard, black nipples and teasing them with his teeth.

She rolls over with him, and he follows her lead, sinking back into the pillows with a smile as she echoes his worship of her body with her own mouth and tongue, her hands massaging every inch of his scales. He grows harder by the moment, as she traces his black markings with her licking, and his hands stroke her back, his fingers raking through her wealth of thick curls.

Shepard slithers up his chest, leaving a trail of glistening wetness from between her thighs, and stops to straddle his face, her moist warmth tantalizingly close to his full lips. The scent of her arousal, of their mingled sweat and fluids, drives him nearly to madness. Without warning, before his exceptionally honed reflexes can react, she grabs his both his wrists and pins them high against the headboard. He gasps when her hands flare cobalt blue against his own, and his tingle with the tell-tale electric pulse of biotic energy; his hands were left frozen against the wall in a tiny stasis field, utterly unable to move. “Imani?” he asks, equal parts startled and undeniably thrilled by her uncharacteristic display of sexual dominance.

“That’s for teasing the hell out of me downstairs. Or did you think I forgot that little stunt when you were taking off my panties?” she whispers with a smirk, still hovering over his mouth. Her hands slide off his frozen arms down onto the headboard, and she spreads her knees wider above his face. “You want my pussy so bad you can taste it, don’t you?” she taunts him playfully.

He growls in feigned petulance, playing his part of the frustrated submissive to the hilt, even if his suddenly watering mouth and quickness of breath are indicators that he is not entirely acting. “That I do,” he answers breathlessly, flicking his tongue up at her, but she’s too quick even for him, and raises up just out of reach.

“Well, if I give it to you,” she says, staring down at him, “you’d better taste it right this time.” This is not the coyly submissive Shepard he’s accustomed to, by any means. She’s never been this domineering with him before, and it drives him to heights of arousal he’s never felt in his life. When she finally lowers herself onto his pouting lips, he obediently buries his tongue inside her, kissing her deeply, and she tastes even sweeter from their mingled juices. His hands unconsciously fight against the stasis field, aching to touch her again, but the harder he fights, the more futile it is, and this frustration merely fuels his desire for her. Her fingers brush against his lips as they sneak down to rub her clit again. She tilts downward to allow him better access, and he begins to suckle it hard; she gasps in delight, and swivels harder on his swirling tongue.

When his hands are freed mere moments later, he brings them down to grab her ass, guiding her hips as she grinds her wetness harder into his mouth. He is nothing less than reverent in his lust, a paradox of impassioned yearning and tenderness, stroking her swollen lips, rolling his agile tongue up and down her clit, swirling the swollen nub, rubbing it with his fingers. But then he concentrates briefly, and his fingers come alight with sizzling blue energy stroking her cunt along with them. His tongue begins to glow, too, and he sends a single charged lick coursing across her clit.

“Oh gods, Thane!” she moans hoarsely, riding his tongue for all she can. Her eyes roll back into her head and she screams in ecstasy, her body shuddering a final time. With only a moment’s pause to catch her panting breath, she merely repositions herself with her back to the headboard; still straddling his face, but stretches down the length of his body, kissing his powerfully muscled inner thighs in turn, and grabs his swollen cock with her hand.

He rumbles softly, and he idly begins to finger her again as she spits into her hand and twists his down his shaft. His eyes widen and he gasps, the moist warmth of her mouth engulfing his cock, her thick lips sliding up and down to suck him hard, and his hips begin unconsciously moving up to meet her strokes. Her tongue swirls around the ribbing, and just as with his own hand moments earlier, hers begins to glow as well, sending faint vibrations buzzing down the shaft.

Thane has used his modest biotic gifts to enhance his lovers’ pleasure in the past, but he’s never actually had another biotic partner before Shepard, and has never been on the receiving end of such delights before. He learns quickly just how amazing they can feel, as her lips work the tip of his cock, and deliciously tingling energy crackles around the sensitive base of his shaft, her glowing hand flexing and coiling up and down the spiraled ridges.

He’s as much thrusting into her mouth now as she’s sucking him off, and he fingers her cunt more insistently in response. This time, he’s the first to tense and go falling over the edge again, shooting hot cum down her throat. He fingers her more urgently, determined to bring her over with him, his tongue glowing electric blue against her swollen clit, and she joins him careening into ecstasy for the second time in as many moments, her sensitive flesh afire with pleasure.

Shepard rolls off him and rights herself on the bed to face him, pressing her trembling form against him. He returns to her lips and kisses her as deeply and passionately as he ever has, a kiss filled with all the raw desire he has ever felt for her.

His tightening lungs force him to reluctantly pull away from her for air, but her soft brown eyes seem to shift, widening slightly, and she sighs blissfully between shortened breaths. He watches in curiosity as her eyes glaze over, and she whimpers softly in pleasure. He recognizes it as now-familiar signs of the narcotic euphoria that comes over her when her lips come into prolonged contact with his skin. The first time they’d made love, it filled him with alarm despite knowing from the medical literature that his drell physiology could have such an effect on her human chemistry, because he was terrified that he’d somehow harmed her or left her too impaired to consent. He knows now, however, from her own reassurances, that her mind is fully her own, and she is merely experiencing her surroundings with a greater clarity than usual. That sights are more colorful to her, that sounds are more resonant, that every touch of his scales and every lick of his tongue against her skin feels that much more pleasing. As the taste of him courses through her body, her senses are awakening and her body with them. It is nearly as hypnotic for him to witness.

“Thane?” she says, at last, still drifting in that mildly narcotic state.

“Yes, Imani?” 

“Your biotics,” she purrs suggestively. She lay her palms flat upon the wrinkled sheets, her fingers and legs spread wide, and she arches her back; her entire body is engulfed by shimmering blue energy, embers swirling about her like cobalt flames. The sight of it alone is nearly enough to make him come all over her. 

She does not have to ask him twice. He breathes as deeply as his strained, tired lungs will allow, and his own body begins to shine in counterpoint. The air between them sizzles with energy as they explore each other’s bodies in renewed curiosity with gentle mouths and hands heightened by their mingled power. It does not matter in the slightest that they’re unable to meld their respective nervous systems together as a pair of asari lovers could; enveloped in a crackling nimbus of entwined cobalt blue, the doubly heightened sensations were still undeniably thrilling. Their energy works in perfect harmony just as it does when they’re in the heat of combat, merely bent toward mutual pleasure rather than destruction.  

Each tantalizing biotic kiss sends shivers down his spine, and even her warm breath sizzles against his scales. She moans as his glowing fingers pinch her hardened nipples, and he echoes the sound as she kneads and massages his ass. He can feel himself hardening with lust again, craving to be inside her again. He cradles her gently into his arms, and slowly enters her for a final time. He has no interest in the breakneck pace from downstairs, not this time. He rides her just as roughly, but he deliberately keeps his pace slow, wanting to savor every moment of the heightened sensation.

They gaze deeply into each other’s eyes, Shepard lost in mildly hallucinatory bliss, Thane endlessly enthralled by her soft moans of delight as he plunges inside her, his hips rolling and gyrating gracefully against her in a slow, hard grind, every inch of his cock tingling with biotic energy shoving deeper with each thrust. Her breath comes in quick gasps, and with each sigh her voice slides upward several octaves from its customary rich contralto; she is singing pleasure throughout his tympanic membrane. 

He loses count of how many times she trembles beneath him, tensing and relaxing, crying out his name as she orgasms over and over again, until she’s at last rendered speechless by the overwhelming sensations of pleasure and simply moans incoherently. There seems no limit to her body’s desire; it’s as though the floodgates have opened, and she simply clings to him helplessly as he carries her across the tide.

 The sight of her rushing orgasms becomes too much for him to bear as well, and he too is carried across, swept up along with her.

“Imani!”

 

* * *

 

Thane cried out her name, and his consciousness shifted from the memory just in time to watch the shooting arc spread across his thighs. Every muscle in his body uncoiled in release for the third time as he sank back into the pillow, gracefully arched back flattened once more. He lay there half covered in shadow, moonlight streaming through the blinds to draw a striped pattern across his abdomen, to match his natural stripes. The golden light reflected in the faintly glistening silver stains upon his chest, his bare thighs, the plain black sheets. He stared for a moment, then exhaled as deeply as he dared, idly stroking himself, his exhausted body finally sated. 

Isn't it better to think of such things, than stare alone at empty walls of steel and plastic? He'd said that to her, during one of their first conversations. And he'd meant it, then. There had been a thousand nights such as this in the past ten years, with different faces; they'd sustained him, to be certain, but none so well as hers. 

Perhaps that was no longer enough, however. Perhaps it could never be enough. The inevitable pangs of longing which followed were also more intense, when he recalled her. Thane sighed, and stared at the window as raindrops pelted against it. It always rained on Kahje, after all, and he was not quite certain why he thought that would have changed in ten years. He released his grip, and reached down for the towel beside the bed to clean up.

It would have to be enough for him, because it was all he had, in that small apartment on a world so far from the prison that kept them apart from one another. Perhaps it would be all he would ever have, despite his prayers to the contrary. Only the Gods could know if it were truly the case, if this sentimental, romantic dream of theirs could ever last in any world outside that of memory. The Gods, and the salarian comrade that waited for him on Sur’Kesh with no promises at all. Uncertainty stretched out before Thane, and though he was lonely, he was no longer afraid. Memory persisted, beside the uncertainty, and she would dwell with him even if it was all they had left.


End file.
